Summit Up 11-21-12: Where goats climb trees for argan oil products

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Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world's only daily column running a photo twice, this time with a full explanation.

Paul Motosko from Silverthorne writes thusly: "My wife sent in a photo about a month-and-a-half ago of goats climbing trees. These photos were taken outside of Agadir, Morocco, while visiting her sister, Ginny, who has been living there for over 30 years. Ginny teaches English at the American Institute in Agadir. The goats are climbing Argan trees, which produce nuts that are used for making butter, (like almond butter), shampoo, hair and skin products. It is amazing to see these goats 15-20 feet off the ground to get to these nuts. Only the black goats can climb the trees. The brown goats can't climb the trees, and only reach up off the ground, or eat the nuts that have fallen to the ground. This information was given to us by a goat herder that was tending to his flock. Thank goodness, my sister-in-law speaks Arabic. He invited us to take as many photos as we liked and go into the field as far as we wanted. There were hundreds of goats in the trees and we took about 50 photos in this field, alone. The herder was very friendly and invited us to come to his house for lunch the next time we come to Morocco. When you see the commercials for Moroccan Argan oil products, like shampoo, these are the trees that they come from.

We have lived in Summit County since 1981 and this is only our second trip to Morocco, for a visit."

And there you have it. Happy Hump Day y'all. We out, prepping our bird.